


Obligate Symbiosis

by LilliputianDuckling



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Adult Conner Kent, Adult Tim Drake, Adulthood, Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Evil, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Cohabitation, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, New Earth, Pre-New 52, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, Titans of Tomorrow, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22335370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilliputianDuckling/pseuds/LilliputianDuckling
Summary: There are as many futures as there are paths to take. Tim knows the only ones worth living have Conner Kent at his side.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 1
Kudos: 69





	1. Titans Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this fic for a long time because it was going to be part of a much longer series of ficlets, but I never got around to writing those and these two fit nicely by themselves. Evil!Future!Batman!Tim just seems to keep happening to this boy.

Tim couldn’t live without Conner. So he made a new one.

North America is clean, secure, and crime is all but eliminated. It’s just too bad he had to get rid of all his morals to do it.

“Tim, come to bed.”

Tim shut his laptop, abruptly ending his IM conversation with Luthor, and looked up. Conner was standing in the living room. He was using a handcloth from the kitchen to clean blood off the backs of his hands and from his face. Tim watches him, that empty feeling in his chest twisting and stabbing into itself.

“When did you get in?” Tim asked numbly.

“Few seconds ago. You were supposed to be asleep already.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Conner laughs and it doesn’t sound like Conner. The cadence is all wrong, just like his inflection is all wrong when he speaks, and his step is all wrong when he walks.

“Come to bed, Tim.”

“I was in the middle of – “

“Come.” Kon purred. “To. Bed.”

And so Tim does, rising to his feet and joining Conner as the clone backs into the bedroom like Tim is being pulled along on a string. And when Conner grabs him by the waist and crushes their mouths together, Tim kisses him back, because he sold his soul for this. Tim lets Conner maneuver him onto the bed, because he gave himself over to Luthor for this. Tim chokes out a sob and cries Conner’s name as this man brings him to the edge, because he can’t let himself break the illusion. He can’t let himself remember that this man is as much Conner as Conner was Clark. He can’t let himself remember that Conner was _dead_ , and _gone,_ and _never coming back_ , because Tim would fall apart and die.

Conner smells like salt and smoke, but he doesn’t smell like the memory of that old, torn Superboy t-shirt Tim still keeps in a shoebox in his closet despite it loosing its scent years ago. But it was something.

Time travel is a bitch, and when Tim Drake meets Tim Drake, he’s rocked at the image of this hurt child that used to be himself.

They’re here to get rid of Supergirl, Blue Beetle, and Ravager. Lex says they’re in the way, that they’re ruining the perfect future Tim has fought and killed for. But this younger, rawer Tim Drake is smart and suicidal enough to hold a gun to his own head to threaten him with and _mean it_. Tim is close, so close, to convincing this Tim Drake to see things his way, to convince him that _he_ is _inevitable_.

This child isn’t surprised that Conner is a clone of the one they once loved, and Tim knows its because he’s already tried.

This young Wonder Girl has finally figured it out, figured out that Conner has no memory of their time together, figured out they were lying to her. She tells this child Tim that it’s time for her to let Conner go, and she kisses him, and Tim feels disgusted. He _remembers_ that. It didn’t last long for him, the product of deep wells of emptiness and a need to be loved, and it won’t last long for this boy either.

“BASTARD!”

Shit.

“You betrayed me! You betrayed your best friend!”

Conner makes a beeline for them, rage in his blue eyes so, so, _so_ like those of the boy Tim once loved, and he’s angry, angry at this child version of Tim, and Tim…

Tim can’t let this go on.

“Kon…” Tim draws his gun and fires before Conner can reach his younger self. The armor piecing bullet dipped in liquid kryptonite does what it’s supposed to. Conner is shocked as the bullet pierces his chest and into his heart, eyes wide.

“Wha - ?”

“I’m sorry,” and Tim’s throat burns. He’s crying, and he drops the gun. “It was self-defense,” he whispers as Conner’s looking up at him on his knees, saying his name like he’s begging for help. Luthor screams for his son, and he’s just as delusional as Tim has been.

Tim pulls the bat cowl over his head. He doesn’t have to look at his child self to know what’s happening.

“It’s over, Lex,” Tim says instead, and he knows. He knows it’s over. Because Tim Drake would never tolerate a future where he could kill Conner Kent with his own hands.

Tim Drake needs Conner Kent to live. So, he allows this child’s heart to change, allows him to close himself off from Tim’s impassioned arguments and perspectives, allows him to never become himself.

Tim’s last thought, as he’s rewritten out of the fabric of time and disappears, is weather or not this means he can see Conner again.

And then he’s gone.


	2. New Earth

Tim is pretty sure, if something happened to Conner Kent, he was going to die.

Well, if something happened to Conner Kent _again_.

Tim laid next to Conner in the bed they shared in their penthouse apartment, head resting on his chest. He listened carefully to Conner’s heartbeat, assuring himself, as he assured himself every night before bed, that Conner was alive. It was well past midnight. Conner had been asleep for the last few hours, and Tim was only now dragging himself in from a night swinging over building tops. Superboy – which, God, they really had to figure out what they were going to call Conner now that they were grown; this “boy” nonsense couldn’t go on forever – patrolled during the day. The night was for Red Robin.

Tim was freshly bruised, and Conner would fuss come morning, but for now the metahuman simply rolled over and wrapped an arm around Tim, curling around the smaller man and nuzzling into his hair sleepily. Conner was a heavy sleeper. Tim grinned to himself, thinking all the way back to sleepovers with Kon and Bart in those early, early days of Young Justice. It felt like a lifetime ago, before the girls, before their Titans, before Damian, before Red Robin… when Tim’s biggest worry was his secret identity and if Stephanie Brown wanted to date him, when all Conner cared about was Wendy the Werewolf Stalker reruns and that Wendy _clearly_ should have gotten with Violet instead of Seraph.

Tim pressed his face into Conner’s chest and _breathed_. Conner smelled like soap, and good hay, and wild violets, and just… _Conner_. He was _warm_ , and Tim’s eyelids felt heavy as his body relaxed against Conner’s, against the mattress and into the sheets. His boyfriend moving in was the greatest thing to happen to Tim’s sleeping schedule.

Tim doesn’t remember falling asleep, but come morning he’s alone in bed and he can smell bacon. It’s noon, but Conner makes breakfast for lunch these days, because quote “it would be a crime if you never had pancakes again because you fight crime all night!”

Conner is in the kitchen frying up bacon on the stove as Tim shuffles into the room with their comforter wrapped around himself. There’s eggs and gravy over toast already on their plates, and Tim had no idea you could put gravy on eggs until Conner Kent started to cook for him. Conner didn’t think he’d ever really learn how to cook, until he found himself dating the most useless gay to ever attempt self-care.

Conner looked up and grinned at Tim, and he looked like the _sun_ , it was hard sharing a space with him.

“Morning, early bird!” Conner teased, winking at him. Tim smiled softly, and shuffled over to the bar stool, crossing his arms on the counter-top and nestled his head into them.

“I love you….” Tim groaned into his elbow. Conner laughed, scooping bacon onto Tim’s plate and pushing it toward him with a fork.

“Come on, Rob. Eat.”

Tim mewled, and started in on the eggs. He groaned around the creamy bite. It wasn’t Alfred’s cooking, nothing complicated, but Conner made a meal out of their nearly empty fridge with a little bit of milk and flower like it was magic.

They ate together, and Conner told him all about his morning, and scolded Tim for the bruises he absolutely saw, no your pajamas did not cover them all up, and Tim nodded and made companionable noises and leaned against his bicep.

Tim was happy. He had Conner; he had his family. Dick drops in for dinner from time to time, Damian’s in high school now, Tim knows Barbara has his apartment bugged, as does Bruce, though Tim removed any cameras and microphones in the bedroom and bathroom – he wasn’t nearly stupid enough to have _windows_ in those rooms anyway.

Bart’s dating Rose these days, and they’re going on three years now. Bart told Tim that he wanted to pop the question, because Bart is nothing if not impatient. He wanted advice, as if Tim knew the first thing about romance, as if he and Conner didn’t start dating half because Cassie joked that since she’d kissed both of them, they might as well kiss each other, and Conner rose to the challenge. As if Tim and Conner were, oh, already married and not just going on two years dating themselves. Evidently Bart viewed “Will you be my roommate?” in the same vein as “Will you marry me?” Tim did his best, and nearly dropped his iPad as he helped Bart pick out a suitably kickass engagement ring when Bart blurted out “Will you be my best man?”

Stephanie’s in contact with her little girl now, who was adopted _interestingly enough_ by a lesbian couple who both worked for Wayne Enterprises, Fiona and Dale; they named her Bryce. Bryce was blonde like Steph, and brown-eyed like Dean, and she was _six years old_. Way to make Tim feel old when he’s barely old enough to drink. Steph brought Tim to the girl’s birthday party, and introduced him to Fiona and Dale as “not the dad,” and Tim’s not sure what possesses him to say “I was the second person to hold her,” but he does. Even Steph looked surprised. She didn’t want to hold Bryce after her C-section. She thought it’d be too hard to give her up if she did. But Tim had. He’d been waiting for Steph to wake up with Stephanie’s mother, and the doctor handed the baby to Crystal Brown. Crystal then handed her to Tim. Fiona cooed, and lamented not getting to see her daughter as a newborn. Dale looks Tim up and down and declares that he still looks like a baby himself. Tim doesn’t tell her he’s Vice President of her company.

Ives and Callie got married. Tim wasn’t invited, but… he understands. Some people just grow apart.

“Tiiiiiim,” Conner chuckled as Tim’s eyes flutter closed. “Come on, dude. Let’s make you some coffee.”

Tim thinks he’ll die without Conner. Everything seems to just fall into place with his clone boy at his side. And everything seems to fall apart without him.

Conner kisses the corner of Tim’s mouth. “You doin’ alright, buddy? Baby? Sugar tits?”

Tim groans and loops his arms around Conner’s shoulders. “I think… you’re my soulmate.”

Conner laughs and scoops Tim up like he weighs nothing, carrying him over to the coffee maker. “How’s that possible? I’m fifteen years younger than you, you cradle robber.” 

“Fuck off,” Tim grumbled into Conner’s neck, and kissed him.


End file.
